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n Ze Stubio”an 
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(Bob's Country/' anb 
**Zhc Scherbo in B*flat 


ff)re 00 of tbe jfranbUn 


printing anb ipubltsbtng Company, 
Htlanta, (5a. @ 1895. © © © © © 


price, 50 dente. 


Soon to be issued from the' press of the Franklin Printing 
and Publishing Co., Geo. W. Harrison, State 
Printer, Manager. 


Side Lights 


What the Society Editor Saw. 


BY D. HlGBEE. 

Author of “ In ‘God’s Country,’ ” “ The Scherzo in 
B-Flat Minor,” and “ Un Ze Studio.” 


“Side Lights” consist of a few of the articles which 
appeared during a period of twelve years at the head of 
the Society Department of the Louisville Courier-Journal. 
They are not restricted to “Society” topics, but cover 
various subjects with no attempt at serious treatment. 
They represent merely the society editor’s point of view, 
showing what she saw and how she saw it. 


“Un Ze Studio.” 


An Idyl of the Housetops. 


by d. higbee. 

n 

Author of “In ‘God’s Country,’” and 
“ The Scherzo In B-flat Minor.” 






The Franklin Printing and Publishing Co. 
Geo. W. Harrison, State Printer, Manager. 

i8g5. 





t 


( 



Copyright, 1895, by D. Higbee. 


% 


NOVEMBER IN KENTUCKY. 


In purple billows the receding hills 

Roll westward, tipped with fire. Far up the steep, 

Embattled horizon they curl and leap — 

A sea of amethyst, whose surge distills 
A mist of palest rose. The sun fulfills 
His course : — an instant on that weltering deep 
Rides buoyantly; then caught in its wild sweep 
His glory on its swelling ridges spills. 

The motley maples reel across the plain 
In garish tatters — green and gold and red. 

Poor harlequins ! To-morrow’s wind and rain 
Finding you shorn, and your mock splendor fled. 
Will lash you wailing through the bleak domain 
Where yesterday your foolish revel sped. 


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• d^.7‘ f*'- i^i- •l-rtf j<'- .^ 

fi :« •*''1 '’'^* '• f /nfvV/i.. . 







“UN ZE STUDIO.” 


I met them under protest. 

McAllister, a friend of mine, him- 
self a newspaper man, said to me 
one day : 

‘ ‘ Go up and see the Dahls. They 
are delightful people and I know 
you will like them.” Then he add- 
ed, as though the thing had not 
been premeditated : “I wish you 
would write something about Dahl. 
He is really a great artist, but he 
might as well have followed Stanley 
into Africa as to stop here, where 
people know nothing about art, and 
care less.’^ 


6 


‘‘UN ZE STUDIO.” 

What is his line I asked in- 
differently, and McAllister replied : 
“Sculpture. I think he has some 
reputation abroad, but that goes for 
nothing here.” 

I promised to go up, but I did 
not. I had been working on a daily 
newspaper for nine years, and I was 
tired of being made to feel that I had 
come into the world for the express 
and exclusive purpose of lying about 
people in print. I was beginning 
to resent the fact that the consider- 
ation meted out to me by society 
at large was in exact proportion to 
the space I was able to fill with ful- 
some records of its doings. I knew 
that McAllister had the finest nose 
for ability of any man of my ac- 


‘‘UN ZE STUDIO.’^ 7 

quaintance ; I had unbounded con- 
fidence in his judgment in all mat- 
ters relating to art ; but I could not 
forget that he was human, and I 
knew by experience the difficulty of 
keeping the judicial faculty free 
from the clogs and hindrances of 
personal preference. The belief 
that McAllister wanted the Dahls 
written up because they were charm- 
ing people and had pleased him, 
rather than because Dahl was a 
great artist, spread like a sable pall 
over my consciousness, and that 
suspicion which dwells forever in 
the breast of the writer for news- 
papers, uncoiled itself and suggested 
that Dahl probably had a handsome 
wife. The conviction that the 


8 


UN ZE STUDIO. 


a 

Dahls belonged to that ^‘deserving’^ 
but incapable class which, like the 
poor, is always with us, got firmly 
fixed in my mind, and I therefore 
saw nothing of them until the city 
editor said to me one day as I was 
going out of the office with my as- 
signments : 

‘ ‘ By the way, I wish you would 
drop into Dahl’s studio this after- 
noon and write something about 
that figure he has modeled for the 

memorial. I don’t know 

anything about Dahl, but Farnham, 
who has the contract for the monu- 
ment, advertises with us quite exten- 
sively, and it may be just as well to 
make some mention of the figure, 
say about two sticks.” 


UN ZE STUDIO. 


9 


ct 

It was past the middle of the af- 
ternoon when I got around to Dahl’s 
studio. It was crowded with visi- 
tors, in the midst of whom towered 
the clay model of a figure of heroic 
size, clad in the stiff and ungraceful 
garments of a United States soldier, 
holding a musket at “present.’^ 

I gave one timid but sweeping 
glance at it, and turned away. My 
heart sank to the toes of my shoes, 
and I began to mourn for McAllister 
as one mourns for a friend who has 
suddenly dropped dead. I could 
see now that in spite of the doubt 
and suspicion that had been upper- 
most in my mind, I had entertained 
a hope just sufficient to fill me with 
a sense of injury as I gazed at the 


lO ZE STUDIO.’’ 

stiff and vacuous creation before me. 
At the first glance it was evident 
that the mere handiwork was of the 
highest order ; that the sculptor had 
given some attention to anatomy, 
and had executed his figure with 
elaborate care; but this only brought 
out more forcibly the poverty of 
the conception, which was barren 
and commonplace to the last de- 
gree. That a man whom McAllis- 
ter had described as a great artist 
could find nothing more than this 
in one of the most superbly tragic 
episodes of the American history 
was too much. 

The figure gave me a sense of 
soreness, as of one who had receiv- 
ed a blow, and I made a desperate 
effort to get out of the room be- 


UN ZE STUDIO/ 


II 


( ( 

fore some thoughtless person should 
add to my distress by asking me 
what I thought of it. I had elbow- 
ed my way to the door, and was 
laying my hand on the knob, open- 
ing my lungs at the same time for 
the breath of relief that was to fol- 
low my exit, when some one took 
me by the arm and drew me forci- 
bly in another direction. It was 
McAllister, and I perceived with dis- 
may that he was relentlessly draw- 
ing me toward the sculptor who 
stood in the center of the room bow- 
ing to a dozen people at once. Dex- 
trously, and with no apology for 
the fraud he had practiced upon me, 
he opened a path and said with the 
insidious smile which distinguished 
him : 


12 


UN ZE STUDIO. 


‘‘ Miss Harra, let me present Mr. 
Dahl. Mr. Dahl, this is Miss 
Harra, of the Democrat.'' 

The sculptor bowed with the 
most exquisite courtesy. He wore 
an artist’s cap, a beard trimmed to 
a point after the foreign fashion. 
His English was so broken that it 
was only by the closest attention 
and then only with the greatest dif- 
ficulty that I could understand him; 
but his speech was so musical, and 
his manner altogether so charming, 
that it was a sufficient pleasure to 
bask in his smile and listen to his 
voice without knowing what he 
said. I caught myself hoping that 
he would never learn to speak 
more distinctly, and wished that I 


“UN ZE STUDIO.’’ 13 

might, by some means, acquire his 
deliciously unintelligible accent. I 
could not place him as to national- 
ity. He was neither German, 
French, Spanish, nor Italian ; of that 
much I was sure, but had got no 
farther than this when, still holding 
me by the hand, and laying an arm 
across my shoulder, he drew me to- 
ward the other side of the room 
where stood a tall, dark woman with 
the most beautiful mouth I had ever 
seen, the faultless curves and color 
of which were enhanced by an ex- 
pression of infinite sweetness. It 
was the mouth which first attracted 
me, but as I studied the face, I 
discovered that the eyes were not 
less beautiful. The features were 


14 “UN ZE STUDIO.” 

regular, although not following the 
Greek outline; the coloring rich, 
the pose of the whole body noble ; 
but the poise of the head was es- 
pecially striking. The moment I 
looked at her those oft-quoted lines 
of Tennyson, 

“ A daughter of the gods, divinely tall, 
And most divinely fair,” 

came into my mind ; only she was 
not ‘‘stiller than chiseled marble,” 
but charged with a sparkling ani- 
mation and a bubbling wit that 
could not be wholly obscured by 
her imperfect command of an alien 
tongue. My taste in women, which 
had hitherto leaned to the petite, 
underwent a revolution as complete 
as it was instantaneous. I was still 


UN ZE STUDIO. 


(( 


>) 


15 


far from forgiving McAllister for the 
unfair advantage he had taken of 
me, but I was beginning to under- 
stand that he was no longer a re- 
sponsible person, and I was also 
beginning to measure, by its effect 
upon my own faculties, the power 
that had bewitched him. 

‘‘My vife, Miss Harra,” said the 
sculptor. Then to her in most be- 
guiling accents : ‘ ‘ Zis is ze friend of 
McAllister. We haf heard him 
speak of her.’^ 

“A-h-h,” said Mrs. Dahl as 
though the whole of her previous 
existence had been one weary wait- 
ing for the friend of McAllister. 
‘^Indeed we haf heard of her and 
we are most glad to see her. We 


1 6 ‘‘UN ZE STUDIO.” 

haf sought she was one of zose 
myssological persons like Yuno and 
Wenus. We are glad to see she is 
alive.” 

From her accent I should unhes- 
itatingly have pronounced her 
French, for her speech, though 
broken and uncertain, was not pre- 
cisely that of her husband ; it was a 
trifle more familiar, a shade more 
musical, and the substitution of z 
for th, of w for r, of e for i, and 
her delicious inflection of e-short, 
which no English tongue can com- 
pass, were distinctly Gallic; but I 
discovered afterward that they were 
both Danes. 

I found her quite as charming 
mentally as physically, and went on 


UN ZE STUDIO. 


17 


talking to her, while the sculptor 
busied himself with the other vis- 
itors, who were continually coming 
and going. I forgot what had 
brought me to the studio, and lost 
sight entirely of the rigid clay 
figure towering above us, which 
was the subject of so many congrat- 
ulatory remarks on all sides. I 
lingered until the short winter after- 
noon had drawn near its close, and 
only the dimmest twilight came in 
through the high north windows of 
the studio. 

Suddenly I discovered that I was 
alone with the Dahls. The sculp- 
tor had bowed out the last visitor 
with his picturesque and, to an 
American, somewhat effusive cour- 


1 8 ‘‘UN ZE STUDIO.’’ 

tesy, and had taken a seat on the 
other side of me. He seemed rather 
fatigued, and for a moment nobody 
said anything. I knew that it was 
time for me to go, but I sat still, 
and presently I became aware that 
the sculptor and his wife were both 
regarding me furtively, with a cer- 
tain deprecatory air, that seemed to 
me to be in some way connected 
with the figure looming above us in 
the dusk. The feeling came over me 
that the figure was a sort of night- 
mare to them as well as to me — a 
sort of skeleton-in the-closet, which 
had just been uncovered in the pres- 
ence of the community, without 
their knowledge or consent. It 
seemed that, now that the guests 
had departed, they were surrender- 


19 


“UN ZE STUDIO.” 

ing themselves to the humiliation of 
the experience, and they did not 
mind my being there in the least. 
The silence lengthened, and nobody 
looked at the figure ; it was like a 
corpse in a room from which all 
eyes instinctively turn away. On 
first finding myself alone with them, 
I was afraid they would ask me 
what I thought of the figure, and I 
was panic-stricken, for I knew that 
no matter what I might try to say 
with my tongue, my face would be- 
tray me. I began to feel very sorry 
for them without knowing why. 
Surely, if a man made a figure like 
that and called his friends to look at 
it, he could not have a very vivid 
sense of its imperfections. I was 


2o 


‘‘UN ZE STUDIO. 


annoyed at finding myself taking a 
subtle and incomprehensible atti- 
tude of condolence, as though the 
sculptor had been the victim of a 
calumny ; while I knew my esti- 
mate to be just, I felt it to be in- 
human. 

In the effort to keep my eyes off 
the figure, I had fixed them steadily 
upon a corner of the room, and 
presently something that looked 
like a drawing, began to take shape 
there in the darkness. A large 
square of drawing paper, with some 
figures in the middle of it, was all 
I could see from where I sat, and I 
got up with a sense of infinite re- 
lief and went over to examine it. 
The sculptor and his wife followed 


21 


“ UN ZE STUDIO.” 

me into the corner with an alacrity 
that was explained by the sequel, 
and the former scratched a match 
and held it so that I could see. 

Three tattered, disheveled figures 
on top of what seemed to be a frag- 
ment of broken wall were defending 
themselves with clubbed muskets 
against an attacking party, not 
shown in the drawing, but suffi- 
ciently indicated by the pose of the 
group. The man on the right had 
just received his death-wound, and 
was in the act of falling backward ; 
the central figure, in a ragged shirt 
open to the waist, hatless, shoeless, 
and clad in what seemed to be the 
fragmentary reminiscence of a pair 
of trousers, was holding in its place 


22 


“UN ZE STUDIO.’ 


a flag, the staff of which had been 
shot in two, while with his other 
hand he held a musket, raised as if 
to strike. The third figure leaned 
over the wall in the act of beating 
back the enemy. Every line of the 
drawing was instinct with graphic 
power ; alive with vigorous move- 
ment. Every muscle of the three 
figures stood out with the tense ef- 
fort of a desperate struggle ; the 
poses and grouping were eloquent 
of the courage of despair. 

“ That is great,” I said. “What 
is it?” 

“ It iss ze dwawing my husband 

haf made for ze monny- 

ment,” replied Mrs. Dahl, beaming. 

“The monument?” I re- 


UN ZE studio; 


23 


peated, gazing in bewilderment from 
the drawing to the figure and from 
the figure to the sculptor. 

He answered me simply with a 
shrug of infinite disgust, and Mrs. 
Dahl came gallantly to the rescue. 

“You see, my husband — what 
iss it you say — haf compete for ze 
monnyment, and he make ze dwaw- 
ing ; but ze committee haf given ze 
monnyment to Mr. Farnham, and 
he haf got us to make ze figyah; 
but, of course, he haf told us how 
to make him.” 

Then they both looked at me 
helplessly. 

I felt like crying, and I am not 
sure that I did not. The tale was 
so simple, and, alas, so common ; so 
full of the heart-break of genius re- 


24 


UN ZE STUDIO. 


( ( 


ff 


viled and spit upon, turning the 
other cheek for the sake of the filthy 
lucre which accompanied the insult, 
and was indeed a part of it ; for even 
genius must have bread and butter, 
or at least bread. Here was a man 
charged with a fine enthusiasm for 
his art, full of ideas and equipped 
with the manual skill, without which 
the noblest conception must mis- 
carry, being judged by this model, 
which somebody else had conceived 
in a spirit of niggardliness. More- 
over, he was a stranger in a strange 
land, unfamiliar with the language, 
customs, temper of the people ; 
worst of all unacquainted with the 
tricks by which contracts are se- 
cured ; with his way to make, and 


UN ZE STUDIO. 




») 


25 


committed to the desperate scramble 
for the wherewithal to live. 


“ If I could only haf made him 
so, or so, or so,” exclaimed the 
sculptor, throwing his body rapidly 
from one position into another. 
“ But, no ; it was zis, only zis,’^ and 
he indicated the result with a ges- 
ture of despair. 

“Yes,” added Mrs. Dahl, almost 
tearfully, ’ ‘he haf told us how many 
wrinkles to make in ze knee of ze 
twousers.^^ 

“You see,” explained the sculp- 
tor, “when a man stand so, his 
twousers look so, like mine. I haf 
made him zis way, but zey will not 
haf so many wrinkles. I will take 


some out to-mowow. 


26 


UN ZE STUDIO. 


(( 


>> 


Then, in spite of the tragic aspect 
of the case, they sat down on the 
lounge and laughed like a couple of 
children, and I laughed with them, 
though I felt more like crying. 

I had the foolish habit of making 
the grievances of other people my 
own ; and on this occasion I felt 
as if I had just seen a well-bred 
and peaceable individual wantonly 
struck in the face. The feeling clung 
to me in spite of the fact that they 
had already shaken off the gloom 
which had previously enwrapped 
them. The moment an appreciative 
eye fell upon his drawing, the whole 
aspect of the case changed for them. 
He had been vindicated, and that 
was all they cared for. The sculptor 


UN ZE STUDIO. 


27 


< ( 

instantly produced a bottle and 
some glasses, and when I declined 
to drink, solely on account of the 
time that I knew would be consumed 
in the operation, he said, with 
amazement and a childlike serious- 
ness that deceived me, until I caught 
a glimpse of the riotous mirth 
penned in a corner of his eye : 

“ But McAllister haf told us you 
are a Kentuckian ?” 

“Well, if McAllister has betrayed 
me, I cannot afford to shame my 
lineage,” I replied, and took the 
glass. 

As I sat between them on the 
broad, low lounge, draped with 
some Eastern stuff, each laid an arm 
across my shoulder, and Mrs. Dahl 
said ; 


28 


UN ZE STUDIO. 


<( 


)> 


You are a dear little girl ; you 
haf eyes all round your head. 

Her manner was calculated to in- 
spire a monumental conceit, and it 
was thus that I fell in love with the 
Dahls at first sight, just as McAl- 
lister had predicted. 

Having fallen in love with the 
Dahls, it was natural that I should 
espouse their cause, and in my 
wrath at the indignity which had 
been put upon them, and my desire 
to avenge it, I forgot the city edi- 
tor’s injunction. I would have been 
glad to take a gun and go out after 
the obtuse creatures who did not 
know a good thing when they saw 
it ; but, not being able to do this, ^ 
I went over to the office and wrote 


29 


“UN ZE STUDIO.” 

an incendiary notice of Dahl’s ex- 
hibition, praising the drawing which 
had been rejected, reviling the fig- 
ure which Farnham had ordered, 
and heaping derision upon the 
“committee of cowboys ” who had 
accepted his bid. 

The city editor, having given ex- 
plicit instructions for the notice, 
merely glanced over it when it was 
handed to him. When it came to 
the managing editor in the proof, 
he was pressed for time ; moreover, 
he did not know who had written 
it, and in running his eye hurriedly 
over the galley he missed the para- 
graph referring to Farnham. The 
notice got into the paper, and the 
next day when I reported at the 


30 ZE STUDIO.” 

office, I found the staff in the con- 
dition best illustrated by a jar of 
buckwheat batter just ready for 
cakes. Farnham had been up de- 
manding ‘‘a correction ” and threat- 
ening to sue the paper for damages. 
The city editor was deeply grieved 
at having failed to discover that the 
notice contained a bomb. He felt 
that I had taken a base advantage 
of him, and he resented it. I could 
not deny that, as the French put it, 
“he had reason.” The managing 
editor was unhappy in that he had 
been called upon to share the re- 
sponsibility, and the counting-room 
was suffering from the withdrawal 
of Farnham ’s advertisement. 

A palpable gloom brooded over 


UN ZE STUDIO. 


n 




31 


the lower floor. I was told as soon 
as I went in that the Old Man ” 
wanted to see me. When I got 
into the little cage where he transact- 
ed the business of a great enterprise, 
he looked at me over his glasses 
with a sort of weary resignation, 
and asked whether I had decided to 
devote my entire time to making 
trouble for the Democrat. He said 
that if I had an excuse to give for 
the notice under consideration, he 
was ready to hear it. The futility 
of attempting to make him see the 
Dahls as I had seen them was only 
too apparent ; likewise the impossi- 
bility of imparting to him my view 
of the situation. I murmured some 
foolish remark about having stated 


32 


“ UN ZE STUDIO. 




the facts, which only seemed to ag- 
gravate the offense. The **01d 
Man ” drew from his pocket the 
clipping which Farnham had in- 
closed in his letter, demanding re- 
dress, and began to read it aloud, 
slowly. 

I had long since grown accustom- 
ed to the fact that the official snick- 
er-snee was suspended over my head 
by the merest thread of gossamer. 
With each paragraph that was read 
I could feel it grazing my neck. 

I consider that the meanest 
piece of writing I have ever seen in 
print, said the “Old Man,” finally, 
intimating at the same time that he 
knew this was saying a good deal, 
in view of some of my previous 


UN ZE STUDIO. 


(( 




33 


contributions to the paper. I held 
my breath as he continued running 
his eye up and down the column, 
and drew it again with infinite relief 
when he flung the clipping into the 
waste basket, and turning from me 
abruptly began sorting his mail. 
This indicated that the interview 
was at an end, and I went out crest- 
fallen, but glad to escape with my 
life. As I reached the steps Mc- 
Allister was passing in the street. 
He paused long enough to remark 
caustically : 

“Well, I see you have done your 
best to ruin Dahl with Farnham. 
He will never give him another job 
of course. I might have known 
that you would do it,” he added 


UN ZE STUDIO. 


34 


{ ( 


)) 


with an air of infinite superiority; 
‘ ‘ I never saw a woman in my life 
who had an ounce of judgment.” 

I was under the ban of general 
condemnation, for the people who 
had been to see the model and had 
spoken of it in the highest terms 
of praise, because they thought 
that was the thing to do, were in- 
censed at having their opinions 
called in question. Only the Dahls 
received me with the kiss of peace 
and affected to make light of the 
evil I had brought upon them, by a 
zeal in their behalf that was not, it 
seemed, according to knowledge. 
They invited me to come and “ loaf 
un ze studio ’’ whenever I had a 
moment to spare, and I required 


UN ZE STUDIO. 


(t 


>> 


35 


no second invitation. I went to 
see them often and I came at last 
to love them very dearly. I think 
that in spite of Dahl’s ability as 
an artist, I was most attracted by 
their broad and comprehensive sym- 
pathy, their patience with bores, 
and their imperturbable amiability. 

Persons of a carping disposition 
might have supposed that I was 
drawn to them on account of the 
delicious things they said about the 
stuff I ground out daily for the 
Democrat^ and I am free to confess 
that my most vapid utterances took 
on a quite poetic charm when Mrs. 
Dahl read them aloud to her hus- 
band, as she sometimes did in my 
presence ; but it was their charity. 


UN ZE STUDIO. 


36 

and a certain guilelessness that I 
felt most when near them. I al- 
ways came out from their presence 
with a sense of deep refreshing, of 
having been cleansed from I knew 
not what impurities, and when I 
visited them often, I found myself 
becoming steeped in a sort of bliss- 
ful infatuation with the world at 
large, and myself in particular, 
which could only be properly tem- 
pered by rebuffs of a more than or- 
dinarily brutal nature. 

McAllister and I always referred 
to them as “the babes in the wood” 
— briefly “as the babes”; and their 
unwearying courtesy, of that ornate 
character which would be impossi- 
ble to an American except on very 


UN ZE STUDIO. 


( i 


f) 


37 


great occasions, was an inexhausti- 
ble source of wonder and amuse- 
ment to both of us. 

At first it seemed to me that their 
affection for each other was too 
spectacular to be real, but my envy 
grew apace as I came to understand 
that it was genuine and unfathoma- 
ble ; that what I saw on the surface 
was the merest ripple compared to 
the deep boundless joy which they 
took in each other. It was like a 
vast ocean of love and peace in 
which they were able to dip the 
whole world, and so regenerate it. 
They made the most ingenious and 
charming excuses for the people 
who did and said silly things. No 
point escaped them, for they were 


UN ZE STUDIO. 


38 

alive to their finger tips with that 
sense of humor that is the salt of 
the earth ; but they no sooner saw 
and laughed, than they began to 
throw over the foible the mantle of 
extenuation. 

At the end of two years the 
Dahls went away, and I neither saw 
nor heard from them again until the 
memorable spring of ’93 drew all 
feet to that great, blustering city 
where all roads met in that year of 
grace. I had followed the current, 
and there I found the sculptor and 
his wife. They had a studio in the 
topmost top of one of the “sky- 
scrapers ” that have made Chicago 
famous, and an ideal flat in one of 
the suburbs. The artist had won 


“UN ZE STUDIO.” 39 

something of the reputation he had 
long deserved, and his studio was 
full of work that kept him occupied 
seven days in the week ; neverthe- 
less, the Dahls still found time, as 
of old, to smile with unwearying 
affability upon the bore and the 
blessing alike, and the studio was 
nearly always full of visitors. There 
were people of note and conse- 
quence, and better still, occasionally 
artists who knew what they were 
talking about and talked to some 
purpose ; here, also, was that vast 
and invincible majority that gaped 
and dawdled, and took up the 
sculptor’s time and prevented other 
people from enjoying themselves. 
I embraced the Dahls with joy, and 


40 


UN ZE studio; 


a 

they made me royally welcome, 
inviting me, as of yore, to come and 
“loaf un ze studio” whenever I had 
a moment ; but Sunday was about 
the only day that I was able to see 
anything of them, for when I was 
not busy myself they were over- 
whelmed with visitors. The spring 
went by like the whir of a great 
wheel. It seemed that we had scarce- 
ly exchanged greetings before the 
Dahls had packed their trunks to 
go abroad, where they expected to 
spend the summer. 

On a certain Sunday afternoon, 
when the sculptor was hurrying to 
finish a bas-relief that was already 
past due, I was invited to come and 
lunch un ze studio” and “ make a 


UN ZE STUDIO. 


41 


n 

day of it/’ the last we should spend 
together until their return. It was 
a glorious June day. Through the 
high windows of the studio, which 
faced westward, a vigorous breeze 
was sweeping ; below us the town 
lay like a black pit, its spires and 
towers looming dimly through dense 
columns of smoke and flying wreaths 
of steam. Beyond, the open prairie 
swam in liquid gold, its far horizon 
line so faint and dim as to give the 
effect of a marine view. 

As I looked down into that smoky 
pit I could think of the town only 
as some terrible beast, crouching 
there in the shadow with every 
sinew tense, waiting for prey, and 
Bret Harte’s lines to San Francisco 


42 


UN ZE STUDIO. 


(( 


seemed to adjust themselves admi- 
rably to the situation : 

“O lion’s whelp, that hidest fast 
In jungle growth of spire and mast ; 

I know thy cunning and thy greed, 

Thy hard, high lust and wilful deed. 

And all thy glory loves to tell 
Of specious gifts material.” 

To-morrow I must go down into 
that pit and fight for my life, but 
to-day I was free, and I turned from 
the window with a deep sense of 
peace and respite to the hammock 
that had been stretched across the 
studio for my especial benefit, and 
lay there watching the sculptor 
scraping away at the bas-relief with 
his modeling pin, and listening to 
his wife who sat at the piano croon- 
ing an old Norse legend. 


UN ZE STUDIO.' 


43 


(( 

As I swung lazily back and forth, 
my eyes, wandering listlessly about 
the room, fell upon the photograph 
of a piece of statuary that I had 
never seen before. 

“What is that?” I asked, as the 
song ceased ; “something new ?” 

“No, it is somesing very old,’^ 
replied the sculptor, twisting his 
head over his shoulder to follow my 
glance. “It is ze photograph of 
my Hercules.” The way he wrapped 
his tongue around that first e was a 
joy to hear. “It was destwoyed in 
ze burning of ze Royal Gallery of 
,” he added, pausing in his la- 
bors to refill one of the big German 
pipes, of which he kept two always 


44 


UN ZE STUDIO. 


c ( 


}f 


near him, smoking them, as it were, 
in relays. 

“And you have never told me 
about it?” I said, reproachfully. 

^‘O yes, we haf told you, but you 
did not care ; you haf forgotten. It 
was of no consequence to you, zat 
small Hercules, made so many years 
ago.’' 

He turned his head to look at me, 
and his features wore an expression 
of deep and abiding injury that was 
made inexpressibly comical by the 
mirth in his eye. 

“I sink it was McAllister we told 
about it,” said his wife, turning 
round on the stool. “Zat dread- 
ful McAllister, who never writes to 
us, who has forgotten all about us, 


UN ZE STUDIO. 


45 


it 

and yet we go about loving him yust 
ze same.” 

‘^Ah, perhaps it was,” admitted 
the sculptor, instantly relaxing the 
muscles of his face. “Ah,” he 
went on, laughing, ‘ ‘Zat was a great 
time when I made my Hercules. It 
was in Germany,’’ he continued, 
scratching carefully at the clay with 
his head on one side. ^‘Ah, when 
we are young we can do everysing ; 
when we are old we can do nuss- 
ing.” This in a tone of infinite sad- 
ness. “I am an old man now,” and 
he drew himself together and shriv- 
eled under my eye to illustrate the 
advanced stage of decrepitude at 
which he had arrived. 


‘‘O zat was before you were mar- 


46 “UN ZE STUDIO.” 

ried when you did zose great sings,” 
said the wife, and she left the piano 
and went over and sat down by him, 
resting her head against his shoulder 
in such a way as not to interfere 
with the free movement of his hands. 

The sculptor took the pipe out of 
his mouth long enough to kiss her 
on the back of the neck and went 
on with his work. 

I had always believed that a ro- 
mance lay hidden away somewhere 
in their past, and I felt now that I 
was getting very close to it ; but I 
knew that it was a very shy and ten- 
der thing, and I lay quite still, pre- 
tending not to see it lest I should 
scare it away. Through all the 
years that I had known them, they 


UN ZE STUDIO. 


(( 


)} 


47 


had never talked of themselves, ex- 
cept in the most general way, and 
I thought now how delightful it 
would be to have the story from 
their own lips, in that soft tongue 
that was like the lisp of children, 
and with that exceeding piquancy 
which was due to their placing the 
accent on the wrong syllable in the 
word and the emphasis on the wrong 
word in the sentence, the effect of 
which is as charming to the ear as 
it is impossible to convey in print. 

Nothing more was said for several 
minutes, and then I asked, careless- 
ly : “Was it long before you were 
married ?” 

year,” replied the wife. “He 
went to Zhermany to study because 


48 ‘‘UN ZE STUDIO.’’ 

zhere was so much better oppor- 
tunity for a young artist in Zher- 
many zhan at home. He went 
zhere to get fame in a year — and he 
did,” she added, looking at him 
proudly. 

“I was bound to have it,^’ said 
the sculptor. “I was betwothed 
to her and I knew zat a year was ze 
longest time I could lif wizout her.” 

“He had yust fifteen dollar of 
your money when he went away, 
poor little boy ! and when he came 
back he look like a greyhound, he 
was so thin. You see, when we 
were betwothed, he had to take me 
to see his relatives, who lived in 
different parts of the country, and 
it took some money. When he 


UN ZE STUDIO. 


49 


came to go he had very little left. 
Of course I did not know how it 
was wiz him, and zen I did not 
know zat he was a great artist,” she 
added jestingly. 

As she said this she looked at 
him and her eyes were like two 
stars burning through the blue im- 
mensity of a summer night. I 
thought that with the tremendous 
propelling power of her love and 
her belief in him behind him he 
could not well be less than great 
eventually, whatever he might have 
been when he found her. 

** If your father was a prominent 
official and drew a salary from the 
government, how did you happen 
to be in such straits for money ?’^ 
1 asked. 


50 “UN ZE STUDIO.’^ 

“You must know,” he replied, 
with large charity for my western 
ignorance, ‘‘zat nearly every man 
in Europe who does anysing great 
in science or art is poor. His salary 
is small and he spends it all on his 
work. He has nussing to give 
his children when he dies ; also, 
he does not feel ashamed of being 
poor.” 

After this the conversation 
flagged again, and I felt that I was 
once more in danger of losing the 
story. Finally I asked: “How 
did you come to be engaged?” 

“She had stood for me for ze 
head of a figyah I was making,” 
explained the sculptor simply. 

“ But zat was not ze first time we 


UN ZE STUDIO. 


<< 


» ' 


51 


met, Otto,” said the wife, laughing. 
Then turning to me: “We were 
out skating, my sister and I, and 
we saw two boys scuffling about on 
ze ice as if zey could not skate. It 
was Otto and his bwother, and at 
last one of zem, it was Otto, fell 
spwalling wight in fwont of us, and 
my sister and I, we laughed till we 
cwied at zose awkward boys.” 

“I wanted to see her close by,” 
explained the sculptor. I had 
seen her often on ze stweet, and I 
used to go up one side and down ze 
other, yust to look at her, but I 
never could get but yust a glimpse. ” 

My mind made a picture of her, 
young, lithe and glowing, skimming 
the ice like a bird, and I did not 
wonder that any young fellow with 


UN ZE STUDIO. 


a heart under his waistcoat and 
blood in his veins should seize 
the first opportunity of prostrating 
himself before her, even at the risk 
of laying himself open to the 
charge of awkwardness, for the sake 
of getting a look at her ‘^close by.” 

Zen he wanted me to sit faw ze 
head,’’ proceeded the wife, ‘^and it 
took a good deal of courwage for a 
young boy like him, he was not 
known at all in zat time, to come 
and ask my mother to let him make 
a study of my head.” 

She did not consent, of course/’ 
I said quite confidently, at which 
they both laughed merrily. 

It is not with us as it is with 
you,” they both explained in a 


UN ZE STUDIO. 


( ( 


>> 


53 


breath. “But, zen, it is not ze 
custom faw young girls to sit faw 
artists, and it was a great concession 
faw my mother to make ; she had 
to know all about Otto first,” Mrs. 
Dahl added. 

“ I was half a year making zat 
bust,” said the sculptor slyly, “and 
I never would have finished it if it 
had not been for going abroad to 
study. I was in love by ze end of 
ze first hour.” 

And of course he could not 
make love to me, because I had an 
escort who always followed me un 
ze studio when I went. It was not 
permitted faw young people to be 
alone together in zat time.” 

“That must have been dread- 


54 “ UN ZE STUDIO.” 

ful !” I exclaimed, trying to com- 
pass the situation with my untu- 
tored sense of things. “ How did 
you manage it?” 

“ I soon found a way of convey- 
ing my thoughts to her so zat no- 
body else could understand,” re- 
plied the sculptor ; ‘ ‘ and after zat 
ze escort made no more difference 
zan if he had been a Hottentot.” 

“And zen he went to Zhermany 
and was un ze studio of a great artist 
there.” 

“And ze artist,” added the sculp- 
tor, “wanted me to work faw him 
by ze day. He had many figyaws, ^ 
and ze students would work faw him 
and he would put on ze last touches. 


“ UN ZE STUDIO.” 55 

He wanted me to work, but I would 
not. Also I had nussing to eat.” 

“ But why wouldn’t you work for 
him if he paid you ?” 

I wanted to finish my Hercules. ” 
“And he lived on eight cents a 
day — one meal, and a spoonful of 
bwandy faw bweakfast and lunch?” 

“Ah,” said the sculptor lightly, 

‘ ‘ it was a whole year, but at last I 
finish him — my Hercules.” 

“And zen ze critic, ze greatest 
critic in Berlin, came one day to ze 
studio, and saw zat Hercules, and 
what he haf written about him haf 
made Otto famous in ze same day,” 
added the wife with suppressed 
eagerness. ‘‘It is because of zat 
criticism zose Zhermans haf ever 


UN ZE STUDIO. 


56 




since call him Hercules Dahl. Zey 
were nice to us, zose Zhermans — 
not a bit zheelous. We met some 
of zem afterwards in Italy,” she went 
on, with her eyes fixed upon the 
west where a gorgeous sunset was 
just reaching a climax. 

It was very funny in zose days 
after he haf written of my Hercules, ” 
continued the sculptor. “I was in- 
vited everywhere, among ze big 
literati and ze artists of great fame, 
and ze onliest pair of twousers I had 
had fwinge on ze bottom ; also on 
my cuffs I had fwinge. 

‘ * Once a servant refuse to take in 
my card because of ze fwinge. I 
was what you call an athlete in zose 
days, and I looked very fierce and 


‘‘UN ZE STUDIO.” 57 

say, ‘ If you do not take in ze card I 
will thwow you in ze stweet.’ 

He laughed gaily at the remem- 
brance. “Good heavens!’^ I ex- 
claimed, “ couldn’t you rent a dress 
suit ? ” feeling that this would have 
been the natural recourse of an 
American in the premises. 

“I had no money, ” he answered 
with a shrug; “also I would haf 
preferred ze fwinge.” 

Then Mrs. Dahl, at my request, 
produced the criticism and I learned 
from it what might be accomplished 
in a single year, with love as the 
motive power, and I felt quite elat- 
ed because I had been able to de- 
tect the signs of greatness without 
knowing anything about ‘ ‘ zat Her- 


UN ZE STUDIO. 


58 

cules” or “ze criticism which haf 
made Otto famous in ze same day.^’ 

I went over to the window and 
looked out. The sun, red as a car- 
buncle and big as a coach wheel, lay 
rocking on the horizon line, and the 
city and the prairie beyond floated 
in a sea of ineffable glory — a flood 
of rose and violet. Each window 
of the meanest tenement which faced 
that glowing gateway had become 
a jewel of surpassing splendor, and 
every spire a fiery arrow piercing 
the canopy of cloud and vapor, 
winged for the blue dome of the 
infinite. 

Only the hand of Omnipotence 
could paint that weltering Gehenna 
with the hues of unutterable beauty ; 


UN ZE STUDIO. 


59 


( ( 

but Omnipotence had stooped to the 
task, and it was as though the very 
pit of hell itself had been for one 
brief instant touched by the efful- 
gence of the Eternal Pardon. For 
me, in that same hour, the whole 
black Tartarus of human experience 
was irradiated by the tender glow 
of a rare and isolated, but absolute 
merging of two lives into one — the 
only instance of a perfect love that 
has ever come into my ken. That 
exquisite idyl that had played itself 
out before me there among the 
housetops was not a thing that 
somebody had written to sell to an 
editor ; it was real, for I had seen it 
— and it lifted my soul out of the 
mire of disgust and loathing in 


6o 


UN ZE STUDIO. 


which it had been steeped for years. 
In one brief hour it had redeemed a 
race. I was grateful for having 
been allowed to see it, as Moses had 
seen but once only, from Pisgah’s 
top, the land of promise ; and I 
thanked 

“ Whatever Gods there be ” 

for these two people who had found 
the haven which I and so many 
others had passed in the night and 
so been driven out to sea. 



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PRESS NOTICES 


OF 


The Scherzo in B-flat Minor. 

% 


By d. higbee, 

AUTHOR OF 

“In ‘God’s Country,”’ and “Un Ze Studio.” 


ATLANTA, GA.: 

The Franklin Printing and Publishing Co 
Geo. W. Harrison, State Printer, Manager. 
1895. 


• tv; 




. ' ' ' p ' '■ 





“SCHERZO IN B-FLAT MINOR.” 


“ The Scherzo in B-flat Minor,” a musical romance, by D, Hig- 
bee, from the press of the Franklin Printing and Publishing Com- 
pany, Atlanta, has met with a wonderful success, and the sales have 
been something beyond the expectations of all concerned, the 
character of the work taken into consideration. The notices the 
story, or as some have called it, the etching, has received from the 
press of the country have been both flattering and otherwise, 
but of such a character in both instances as to be exceedingly 
gratifying to the author, and have been made by the leading 
critics and writers. 

The Scherzo is written in an entirely different vein from Miss 
Higbee’s story of “In Cod’s Country,” which met with such won- 
derful success a few years ago, and tends to show her remarkable 
ability as a writer, and while this last effort on her part will not 
reach the same class of readers as the first, it is a production that 
will always live, and will appeal to the element interested in the 
highest development of letters. 

The book is a work of art from the printer’s standpoint, and re- 
flects great credit upon the Franklin Printing Company, and is a 
production that cannot be excelled by any other printing estab- 
lishment in this country. 

The following is a “ preface ” written by Miss Higbee, originally 
intended to be printed in the book, and which will be used in the 


4 


second edition, soon to be issued, and which probably gives the 
author’s own impressions in the story better than anything that 
has yet been written : 

‘“The Scherzo in B-liat Minor’ is a study of impressions 
rather than of situations; a narrative of moods, rather than of 
events. It is the story of those moods, or attitudes of mind, 
through which the man of sensitive and high-strung temperament, 
lacking the capacity for the hustle and horn-blowing so necessary 
to success in this nineteenth century, passes upon his way to 
such recognition as is vouchsafed him in a generation that is too 
busy with its own affairs to seek after merit that is lurking in the 
shadow of obscurity, and too set in its opinions and its tastes to 
accept a thing that is not wholly to its liking and quite within its 
comprehension. 

“There are many men in the world to-day, not only in litera- 
ture, but in other branches of art, who, through no fault of their 
own, find themselves charged, like Felix, with a message that is 
either unintelligible or unwelcome to the mass of the people by 
whom they are surrounded. 

“ There is certainly a way to success for every man who is con- 
tent to walk therein. To the man who has no artistic conscience, 
who is not averse to doing the thing that is demanded of him, 
the way is open and obvious. The standards which prove a man’s 
capacity and determine his career are two : the standard of money 
and the standard of art, and they rarely coincide. It is only after 
a man’s reputation is made that he can use it for the purpose of 
whipping the public into line, and the questions that confront him 
in the beginning are: Which shall it be, God or Mammon? 
Shall I stifle the appeal which nature is seeking to utter through 
me — that appeal which burns to be delivered — and so put money 
in my purse? Shall I play harlequin before a whimsical and 


0 


thoughtless multitude and win for myself a little laughter and a 
little of that which will keep me from going hungry; or shall I 
flaunt the standard of the eternal verities in the face of the mul- 
titude and be trampled under foot for my folly? 

“ The decision might be easy enough were it not for the fact 
that sometimes a man’s whole bent and yearning sets in an irre- 
sistible current toward the unwelcome and the unprofitable (at 
least from the worldly point of view) and that the effort to turn 
the current out of its natural course requires a struggle that does 
violence to all that seems to him most worthy of devotion. 

“A man may be highly gifted intellectually without having the 
physical strength and the mental poise necessary to carry him 
through the ordeal of such a struggle, and if to this peculiarity of 
temperament be added that lack of incentive which too often ob- 
tains in the lives of persons cut adrift from their species by the 
snapping of all natural ties, the scale is pretty apt to kick the 
beam on the wrong side. 

“ Emerson says that ‘ to the intellect there is no sin,’ and the 
poet or the philosopher who lives subjectively, is not held in 
check by the fear that is bred of superstition ; hence, to such a 
one suicide is simply a question of changing his base of opera- 
tions. Shall I live in this house or that? Shall I work under 
these conditions or those? Shall I bear the ills I have or fly to 
those I know not of? 

“This is the mood in its incipiency. By and by it ceases to 
wear an interrogative aspect. The one wild, intense, ungovern- 
able yearning of the soul is to be free. Life, this mortal coil, is 
like a house that has become uninhabitable by reason of the rasp- 
ing noises, the pestiferous insects that infest it ; every sensation 
has a sting in it. 

“ This is not a healthful mood truly ; far from it ; but it is a 
mood that all fine-natured, highly-gifted men experience at some 


G 


time in their lives. It is the mood in which Hamlet utters the 
incomparable soliloquy ; in which the impetuous Gloster cries 

“ ‘ Well, say there is no kingdom then for Kichard, 

What other pleasure can this world afford? ’ 

The mood in which Jesus asked of his disciples : ‘ What, could 

ye not watch with me one hour? ’ Even the least of us have, at 
some time in our lives, arrived at it — this focus that shows us only 
the futility of things. How a man passes this ordeal depends 
upon temperament and the circumstances which surround him. 

“ The soldier, preferring death to a crownless head, commits his 
life to the chance of war and turns his weapons against the obsta- 
cles that shut him from the eminence he fain would win ; the 
poet, in the ‘ piping time of peace,’ has no such resource. Thought 
and action turn inward and the blade is sheathed in his own 
heart; the prophet without honor, in mystic exaltation, looks up- 
ward and says: ‘Not my will, but thine, O Father!’ and one 
event happeneth to all.” — Walter Howard, in Atlanta ( Ga.) Journal. 


It is curious that stories relating to music are so uniformly mel- 
ancholy. “The Scherzo in B-flat Minor,” by D. Higbee, is a 
dreary tale. It has the merit of brevity, and it is gracefully writ- 
ten, but it is certainly not calculated to promote buoyancy. — Indi- 
anapolis [Ind.) News. 


Mrs. Dolly Higbee Geppert has broken her long silence and 
published in Atlanta a novelette, “ The Scherzo in B-flat Minor,” 
characterized by all her felicity of style, but thoroughly morbid in 
tone and subject. It was very ungentlemanly in her hero to drown 
himself in the reservoir from which his fellow-citizens got their 


7 


drinking water, and it was quite impossible for him to hear the 
voice of the mowers at the time of year to which he lingered on. 
Louisville [Ky.) Cominercial. 


“The Scherzo in B-flat Minor,” by D. Highee, is a musical 
story, in which a musician who is a dreamer, a failure, and, pos- 
sessed of “ the heart- weariness that comes of the love of many 
women,” returns to his native land and finds the mate of his soul 
in a contralto singer. Before they have met she dies, and he soon 
follows her. — San Francisco [Cal.) Argonaut. 


We are indebted to Mr. D. Highee, of Atlanta, for a most curi- 
ous and fascinating brochure. Taking for his theme the singularly 
melancholy B-flat minor Scherzo of Chopin, Mr. Highee has pro- 
duced a powerful psychologic study of which not the least inter- 
esting feature is the consummate skill with which words are made 
to produce and echo the mystical eflects of the music itself. Taking 
the scherzo movement of Chopin, the writer has caused it to 
haunt an ingenious life-story in which the longings and disap- 
pointments of a young musician are told. The thread of mysti- 
cism and romance running through the story is exquisite, and the 
end as sad and pathetic as Chopin’s own. It may be said by 
close critics that the little sketch is morbid and unwholesome, but 
there is no denying its poetic and pathetic beauty. — Chicago {III.) 
Presto. 


Mrs. Dollie Higbee Geppert, of Atlanta, Ga., has just published 
a musical romance entitled “The Scherzo in B-flat Minor.” To 
those familiar with the friendship between Mrs. Geppert and Mrs. 
Llewellyn Smith, formerly of this city but now a resident of Cin- 


8 


cinnati, it is evident that she has selected this lady as the heroine 
of the story. Her description of her looks and of her appearance 
in concert indicate Mrs. Smith, but the termination is, of course, a 
mere fanciful one. The building on the corner of Fourth and 
AValnut streets, which has been the abode of so many musicians, 
including Mr. Waller, is mentioned in the tale, and our local mu- 
sical entertainments given for sweet charity’s sake get a cruel 
scoring . — Louisville (/fy.) Times. 

“ The Scherzo in B-flat Minor ” is a melancholy morceau, by 
D. Higbee, author of “ In God’s Country.” It is a musical story, 
beginning in hopeless love and ending in suicide. The tale is well 
written and attractive, in spite of its tragic termination . — Pittsburg 
{Pa.) Press. 

“ The Scherzo in B-flat Minor,” a musical story, by D. Higbee, 
has just been sent out to the world. Franklin Printing and Pub- 
lishing Company, publishers, Atlanta, Ga. The sketch is one of 
the modern stories, with no plot to it, but beautifully written and 
intensely interesting. The author has extraordinary talent in his 
delineations of character, and, although the story is rather sad, it 
is of great merit and something entirely different from most of the 
stories of the time. The binding of the book is specially attractive. 
Jacksofiville {Fla.) Tinies-Union. 


Mr. Higbee is favorably known to us as the author of “ In God’s 
Country,” an unusually clever novel of Southern life and charac- 
ter. In the musical novelette which he has now published he has 
hardly, however, fulfilled the promise of his earlier volume. The 
story is slight, vague, and ineffective, and will not advance the 
author’s reputation.— {S. C.) News and Courier. 


9 


The author sends me a quaintly gotten-up booklet called “Scherzo 
in B-flat Minor.” It is a short and very poetically flavored stnry, 
and is by D. Higbee, and comes from an Atlanta publisher. Mr. 
Higbee has considerable skill in what is called word-painting. The 
story is a desperate one. It tells of a flne, sensitive, proud spirit, 
that, refusing to be comforted by conventional shams of the world, 
leaves it after losing his all — a beautiful young singer with whom 
he was never acquainted. The B-flat minor scherzo of Chopin is 
employed as a background, and its various themes are skillfully 
woven in the texture of the tale. It is pessimistic in the extreme, 
and when I finished I said, “Another plea for suicide.” But Mr. 
Higbee’s stcry is more than that, although unquestionably morbid. 
It has the Poe-esque coloring, with the musical interest super- 
added. I can recommend it only to stout, healthy young parties, 
whose touch suggests beefsteak and onions. Sentimental persons 
should avoid it. It is too much already their way of viewing 
life . — New York Musical Courier. 

Felix w'as a disgruntled and disappointed soul for whom life held 
nothing, but when he met that woman on the street he thought 
that there might be a possibility in it, and when he heard her sing 
the song that he wrote it quite clinched the matter. It is a short 
story, and too long by half . — New Orleans Picayune. 


Dolly Higbee’s (Mrs. William Geppert) “Scherzo in B-flat 
Minor” is a very clever piece of work along a new and puzzling 
line. It is calculated to make the reader think, and deals with a 
man who returns to his home “ with the depression of spirit born 
of failure, and the heart- weariness that comes of the love of many 
women.” It is more than clever. It is subtle ; and as haunting 
as an unkept resolution. 


10 


Mrs. Geppert is not easily surpassed as a writer of English. 
There is something powerful and pointed in every sentence, and 
her thoughts are always crisply expressed and well developed. 
The story is illusive and somehow not to he explained, and yet it 
is there awaiting the reader, nor is it lacking in significance be- 
cause the outlines are faint. The moral is peculiar and one that 
each man must consider for himself. The story’s only touch of 
humor is inspired by the buzzing audience at an amateur concert 
for charity — “ a motley crowd,” says the author, “ drawn together 
by one of those ingenious devices of civilization by which the vic- 
tim is first robbed and afterwards tortured in the name of the 
brotherhood of man .” — Miss Stocker, in Atlanta {Ga.) Journal. 


Mrs. William Geppert’s book is being considerably discussed, 
and succeeds in making a very deep impression on a great many 
people. The following criticism is sent in by one of the many 
who have road her words with interest and pleasure : 

“ There is a delicate subtlety, a palpitating minor chord of un- 
rest, of misspent passion, unrealized ambition and unfulfilled de- 
sires, which thrill through this little story, — or rather sketch, for 
one would scarce call it a story. There is no plot — no endless in- 
troduction of uninteresting characters — no love-making — no dia- 
logue. It tells of a man who, weary in heart and soul, tired of 
wandering around an unappreciative world, returns to his native 
village to seek — not happiness or content — but rest — dull, quiet, 
uneventful rest. He has fought the fight and comes forth beaten. 
But even here, there are moments when his chafed spirit bursts 
the bonds and breaks forth in wild vituperation at, and contempt 
of, the ‘ common herd.’ And then, she comes, with her great 
luminous eyes, two points of divine radiance gazing back at the 
heaven from which they had been temporarily banished and — 


11 


that’s all. 1^0, not quite, for she dies, and he, who in her life, 
never sought her for fear of disenchantment ; for fear she would 
afilict him with that soul-sickness that comes of sounding for sym- 
pathy and finding the lead strike bottom before the line is half 
reeled off, awakens to the realization that she was that ‘twin 
soul,’ that ‘perfect unison without which life is one long bitter- 
ness.’ Kegret avails naught, the impotence of ‘ irreclaimable 
loss,’ the heart sick grief at ‘ what might have been,’ sweeps over 
him like an engulfing wave. In his despair he tries to solve the 
problem which has proved the rock on which many a vessel has 
gone to pieces — the mystery of death. That mystery of ‘ ceasing 
to be ’ by one’s own volition. And one day in the stillness of the 
autumn evening, when the glinting sunlight cast little quivering- 
ripples of light on a broad expanse of water, he solved the prob- 
lem. It is rather unsatisfactory to have one’s hero to commit 
suicide. And one can’t help feeling vexed with the latter for 
allowing his golden opportunities to pass without making any 
effort to grasp them. After reaching the end one is not wholly sat- 
isfied. It awakens a responsive chord of sadness and grief and 
unconsummated hopes. It lingers on the senses like a strain of 
music, haunting one with its vague unrest. Perhaps its very 
charm lies in this, for one is very apt to turn the dainty covers 
and reread the story of the man ‘ with the depression of spirit 
born of failure and heart- weariness that comes of the love of many 
women.’ ” — Miss M. Brown in Atlanta (Ga.) Journal. 


The appearance of this pretty little book is most inviting. Upon 
the old blue cover is a bar of the music of Chopin and the author’s 
autograph. The print and the paper are beautiful, A bar of 
music and a verse of poetry precede each chapter. The style is 
clear and the language shows that the writer has words at his com- 


12 


mand that are strong and forcible. But the story — there’s the disap- 
pointment. It is the rapture of a musician who has wasted life with 
a prodigal hand. Having exhausted every emotion, he is ready 
to die at thirty-live. He catches a glimpse of a beautiful woman 
and dreams of her. He does not care to know her. One day the bell 
tolls the message that she is dead. A year drags by and then the 
hero drowns himself in a park lake. It is a pity that ability 
should be wasted in writing an unwholesome and immoral sketch, 
for surely suicide as the only solace for a talented mind is not a 
moral or inspiring lesson . — Denver ( Colo.) Times. 

“ The Scherzo in B-flat Minor” is a pretty story by D. Higbee, 
author of “ In God’s Country,” Atlanta, Ga. It is a well told tale 
of an abnormal sort of soul. — St. Joseph {Mo.) Daily Neivs. 


Atlanta’s latest contribution to literature is entitled “ The 
Scherzo in B-flat Minor,” and is from the pen of “Dolly” Higbee, 
now Mrs. 'William Geppert. I would hesitate to commend this 
little book to readers of the Yellow Aster and Green Carnation 
school, but those who occasionally indulge in the luxury of cele- 
bration will thank me, I feel confldent, for directing it to their 
attention. It makes no pretensions to being a story, but is a pow- 
erful and somber metaphysical analysis hung upon an exceedingly 
slender thread of incident. I would call it, if pressed for a phrase, 
a study in ennui. The central figure is an impossible young gen- 
tlemen named Felix, whose energies have been sapped by inaction, 
and who fails to marry the girl he loves because he fears he may 
live to regret it. The rest is a description of his swift transition 
to the ultimate depths of pessimism and disenchantment, with a 
note of tragedy at the curtain. The chief charm of the book lies 
in its felicitous handling and epigrammatic touches. I congratu- 


13 


late Mrs. Geppert on a thoughtful, serious, and most creditable 
performance. — Atlanta [Oa.) Looking Glass. 


“The Scherzo in B-flat Minor,” by D. Higbee, is a musical 
novel not up to the standard of “ Charles Auchester ” quite, but a 
piece of literary work very well done. There is a glorious singer, 
a despairing composer, and a suicide. The author ought to try his 
hand again and on a larger scale. — Minneapolis {Minn.) Journal. 


Although not exactly in the line of insurance literature, we are 
pleased to commend to our reading clientele this clever little story 
by Mrs. Geppert, nee Miss Dolly Higbee, so long and favorably 
known to readers of the Louisville Courier- Journal, and other 
leading journals. We interrupt at once the thread of our comment 
to call attention to the little faux pas of the Musical Courier, 
which, in its last issue, notes this book and refers repeatedly to 
Mr. Higbee as the author. It is a little matter, perhaps, but Mrs. 
Geppert is too entirely a lady to be thus unsexed by the infallible 
Courier without a word of protest. 

Now as to the book. Mrs. Geppert has taken “Chopin’s B- 
flat minor Scherzo” as a foundation thread upon which to 
weave, in the guise of fiction, a thoughtful discussion of certain 
prevalent moods characteristic of the fin de siecle — not in a flip- 
pant way, but with a sympathetic appreciation of the tinge ot 
pessimism which gives color to the intellectual life of our times. 

It was Horace Walpole, we think, who said, “ To him who thinks 
life is a comedy ; to him who feels life is a tragedy,” and it is with 
a frank, though not hopeless, recognition of the underlying truth 
involved in this bo7i mot that Mrs. Geppert (Miss Higbee) has 
written. 



D. Ibigbee'9 Boofte 


“IN ‘GOD’S COUNTRY.”’ 

Out of Print. 

“ The Scherzo in B-flat Minor.’’ 

Price 50 cents. Franklin Printing & Publishing Co. 

Atlanta, Ga. 

« 

‘‘UN ZE STUDIO.” An Idyl of the Housetops. 
Price 50 cents. Franklin Printing & Publishing Co. 

Atlanta, Ga. 

“ SIDE LIGHTS.” What the Society Editor Saw. 

In Press. Franklin Printing & Publishing Co. 

Atlanta, Ga. 




o 


HIGH IN PRICE, BUT NO 
BETTER MADE IN THE WORLD 

SAN Francisco, Cal., Nov. 23, 1893. 

CONOVER PIANO CO. 

Gentlemen : I purchased a Conover Up- 
right Piano some fourteen years ago, since which 
time it has been in daiiy use, and I am pleased to 
state that it has given me entire satisfaction. 

Yours truly, 

ERNST Hartman. 














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